(rdnewsNOW/Josh Hall)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

temporary measures over

Patient diversion situation at Red Deer Regional Hospital stabilized

Dec 13, 2021 | 5:08 PM

Fourteen surgical patients at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre (RDRHC) were diverted to Calgary and Edmonton over the weekend.

Alberta Health Services says the situation occurred as result of trying to reduce wait times, adding that as of 8 a.m. Monday, things have stabilized.

AHS says all of the patients were stable at time of transfer.

“All emergency cases continued to be handled at RDRHC as normal over the weekend. Surgical patient volumes have now returned to manageable levels,” the health authority says in a statement.

“RDRHC has been experiencing higher than normal number of patients needing surgery, which has been compounded by ongoing vacancies in Operating Room (OR) staffing that have impacted the number of procedures able to be performed in Red Deer.”

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AHS says the site is working to perform additional surgeries this week with all available staffing supports, as well as increasing OR time at other sites in the Central Zone, such as Olds Hospital and Care Centre.

“AHS continues to actively recruit additional OR staffing to support increased surgical volumes at RDRHC, as well as providing additional in-house training for staff through an OR training program developed at the site,” they say.

“Provincially efforts continue to increase surgical volumes and return to pre-pandemic numbers to help ensure Albertans who require surgery receive it within clinically appropriate timelines.”

Meantime, the provincial Opposition NDP are using this and other health care-related issues to go on the offensive.

Monday, party representatives introduced an expectant mother from Cold Lake due to give birth any time now, but the lack of an anesthesiologist means she’ll need to have the baby delivered 3.5 hours away in Edmonton.

Health Critic David Shepherd, related the woman’s situation to Red Deer, calling the diversion of patients incredibly disturbing.

“This (situation in Red Deer) isn’t because of any problem with AHS, or health care workers; this lies with Jason Kenney and the UCP who have utterly undermined and created chaos in our health care system for two years counting, and in the midst of a global pandemic,” said Shepherd.

“They have attacked doctors, undermined nurses, tried to roll back their wages on the eve of the fourth wave which they let get out of control, and unfortunately, it’s folks in Red Deer and elsewhere that are having to pay the price.”

Asked about a recent report that the business case for RDRHC expansion has been completed, Shepherd said the NDP are absolutely going to push for that business case to be made public.

rdnewsNOW asked Alberta Health last month, but was told that type of document isn’t typically made public.

READ MORE: Hospital construction timeline unknown, but business case complete

“We put forward funding to start the work toward the business case, and we supported the government when they said they were going to move ahead on that plan, but we have that lack of transparency from the government that we’ve seen throughout this pandemic and at so many other stages,” Shepherd, the MLA for Edmonton-City Centre, said.

“We call on the government to make that business plan public, to be very clear about timelines and their intentions to fund expansion. It’s the least they can do when theyve been undermining the backbone of our services.”

“Stop damaging our public health care system and actually make some real investments to improve it,” he concluded.

rdnewsNOW requested comment from Alberta Health today, but did not hear back by deadline.